Big and medium-sized organizations run almost everything we depend on from garbage removal to providing your internet service. You probably work in one.To be efficient and effective at providing those things, it used to be that your best organizational approach was to be as large as possible (for economies of scale) and to focus on repetition using standard procedures and “best practices.” To do that, you needed people to write those procedures, to measure the results, and to ensure that people were trained and were following them.

Zombie organizationsThe problem is that organizations doing this tend to act like zombies:

They can’t run very fast and are unco-ordinated

They single-mindedly go in the most obvious direction

Are seemingly unable to learn from their mistakes

Are happiest when shambling along in a crowd of other zombie organizations

So our zombie organizations are facing a VUCA world which is now awash in more and more information and knowledge; we have half the world’s population now using the internet, and digital disruption occurring almost everywhere. How ironic — more uncertainty while there is more available information and knowledge than ever before.

Disengaged workers

To make it worse, the workers in our zombie organizations are either not engaged in their work or even actively disengaged. Worldwide, according to Gallup, 87 percent of employees are not engaged. It is a bit better in the United States — the number there is only (!) 70 percent. The very people that zombie organizations need to help them make sense of this ever-changing world are showing up for work but are mentally checked-out.

In a VUCA-digital world, the agility of an organization is now more important than its size or its ability to repeat what it did yesterday.

Jack Welch, CEO of General Electric, once said: "An organization's ability to learn, and translate that learning into action rapidly, is the ultimate competitive advantage." This is true now more than ever and it poses an existential threat to zombie organizations who are much better at moving in a straight line than dodging the curveballs the world is throwing at them. What we need now is to build smarter organizations by rebooting those zombie organizations so they can deliver better products and services and have happier workers.

Calculating your organization’s “Z”ombie score

The first step is to identify which are the zombie organizations. You can calculate your organizations’ “Z” — or Zombie — score. Follow this link to download the Z test and answer the 10 Yes / No questions.

If you score 7+: Emergency! ​Your organization is in full-fledged zombie mode, and drastic action is required immediately. It may be too late, but getting your leadership to read this blog will start you on your recovery or join the anti-zombie movement at Building Smarter Organizations.

Gordon Vala-Webb

I connect organizations to new ways of thinking and innovation, then work with them to choose the best path forward, and then design and implement the change with them.

My main focus is on:- Connecting people together through collaborative and networking technologies- Aligning culture and leadership to the business strategy- Making knowledge work visible so that it can be manged better